Gregor the Overlander

Gregor, a young teen from New York City, is stuck at home while his sister gets to go to summer camp. His father is missing and his mother works full time, so he is in charge of watching his baby sister, Boots. One day, while helping Gregor do laundry in the basement, Boots up and disappears behind a dryer, chasing after her ball! Gregor follows her and ends up falling through a grate in the wall.

Landing in a cave deep underground, Gregor and his sister find

themselves in a strange land surrounded by giant cockroaches, spiders, rats and bats. They are taken to a city populated by humans who are on the brink of war with their enemies. An ancient prophecy foretells of Gregor’s coming and the part he is to play in the upcoming war, but he doesn’t want any part of it. A prolific writer, Suzanne Collins began her career All Gregor wants to do is find his missing father and a way home, but in 1991, writing for he soon comes to realize that unless he fulfills his part of the prophecy, children’s television shows such as Clifford’s Puppy the Underland will be destroyed forever. Join Gregor on his quest to Days, Little Bear. Inspired save the Underland and his father! by Alice in Wonderland, she came up with the idea of Gregor the Underlander, the first in a series of fantasy/war Want to learn novels that landed on the more? Click here

New York Times bestseller to read an interview with the list and was sold in 21 author! foreign countries. She next wrote the Hunger Games series, which became an international bestseller.

Pre-Reading Activities

1. Create your own map of what you think the Underworld looks like.

2. Work on the vocabulary activity included below, can you correctly match the word to the definition before reading the story?

3. Watch the book trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekE8Uz9HnUY

http://www.suzannecollins books.com/index.htm Discussion Questions

1. If you moved away from the home you had been born/raised in, how would you feel about it? Would you be glad for the opportunity to try something different, or would you be like Gregor’s grandmother and wish you were back home?

2. Do you think that when Europeans arrived in the New World, like Sandwich did, that the Native Americans kept certain places secret from them, or would they have shared the knowledge of these secret places with the newcomers? What would some of the advantages or disadvantages be of knowing about these places?

3. Even though boots is only two, she knew enough to include the spiders and roaches in the sharing of the root beer. Would you have done the same as Boots (shared your drink), or left them out of the sharing circle? Do you think the other members of the group would have shared the root beer with the animals also?

4. The rats in the story were bloodthirsty and cruel, uninclined to help anyone but a fellow rat. And yet, Ripred kept trying to help the humans, even when they showed no trust in him. Why do you think he kept helping them? Was he trying to change their opinions of the rats, or do you think he had a different goal in mind?

5. Why would the humans of the Underland have assumed that the rats wouldn’t know anything about the Overland? Do you think it was because the rats liked to keep certain things secret from the humans? What advantage would they have had in doing so?

6. Why do you think the rats wanted to capture Gregor so badly? Even though he had just come to the Underland, how would they have known that he was the one they wanted? He was just a boy, so how could a boy possibly be the warrior they feared so much?

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Suzanne Collins. “Biography” Suzanne Collins Books, 2013, http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/index.htm. Accessed August 19, 2018. Dictionary definitions. Dictionary.com, 19 Aug. 2018, https://www.dictionary.com/. Accessed August 19, 2018. Justice. “Gregor the Overlander: Writing War (and Other Big Themes)” Wordpress, 11 May 2017, https://tinyurl.com/ycdq3xf6. Accessed August 19, 2018. Match-up Maker. TheTeachersCorner, 25 August 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y8jpw6qf. Accessed XXXX, 2018. Word Search Maker. TheTeachersCorner, 25 August 2018, https://tinyurl.com/jepre8w. Accessed XXXX, 2018. Novel Guide created by Andrea Fursman, LIN Senior Capstone, Fall 2018